Politics

Judge Appears Skeptical of Claims That Musk Isn’t Driving DOGE

Published

10 months ago

February 28, 2025

Judge Appears Skeptical of Claims That Musk Isn’t Driving DOGE

A federal judge said on Friday that it seemed “factually inaccurate” for the Trump administration to keep insisting that Elon Musk has no formal position in an operation that has led to mass firings of federal workers and the hobbling of the nation’s foreign aid agency.

The judge, Theodore D. Chuang of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, prodded government lawyers repeatedly for additional clarity on Mr. Musk’s role in a case that directly challenges the constitutionality of the task force known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or the U.S. DOGE Service.

Until this week, government officials had resisted answering inquiries as to who was formally in charge of the task force, except to say that it was not Mr. Musk. (Nor is Mr. Musk among its employees, the government said.) On Tuesday, a White House official said that Amy Gleason, a former health care investment executive, was serving as the acting administrator.

On Friday, Joshua E. Gardner, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s civil division, denied that Mr. Musk had any role with the Department of Government Efficiency. This despite Mr. Musk’s clearly driving its initiatives, including an email blasted out last weekend that attempted to require all federal employees to respond with a list of five accomplishments from the previous week. Although the email was sent by the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources arm, Mr. Musk said on Wednesday that he had suggested it and that the president had approved.

Judge Huang asked Mr. Gardner who had led the agency before Ms. Gleason was announced as acting administrator. Mr. Gardner said he had not asked, then immediately corrected himself, saying that he had asked but “was not able to get an answer” beyond that it was not Mr. Musk. The judge said he found it “very suspicious” that the government did not have an answer.

The three-hour hearing was the latest in a lawsuit filed in mid-February on behalf of 26 unnamed current and former employees or contractors of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The foreign aid agency, a particular target of Mr. Musk’s, has been rapidly dismantled in the months since Mr. Trump took office. In recent days, Trump administration appointees have fired hundreds of employees who help manage responses to urgent humanitarian crises around the world, leaving the agency’s future in turmoil.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs on Friday argued that Mr. Musk’s operation was inherently unconstitutional because he had not been appointed by the president nor approved by the Senate, as is required for high-level officials by the appointments clause of the Constitution.

Mr. Musk is “the most powerful principal officer currently in the government alongside the president, and one of the most powerful in our country’s history,” Norm Eisen, one of the lawyers, said.

He added that historically, no figure in the executive branch, not even the White House chief of staff who is the president’s top aide, has acted with as much authority as Mr. Musk. That meant that Mr. Musk’s actions in the case of U.S.A.I.D. — dispatching teams to shut down programs, cut off systems access to employees and contractors and comb through sensitive and confidential agency data — amounted to “a grave violation of the separation of powers,” Mr. Eisen said.

Mimi Marziani, Mr. Eisen’s co-counsel, further characterized Mr. Musk’s role as a “made-up position” leading a “made-up super-agency.”

Court filings in a torrent of lawsuits challenging Mr. Musk and his associates’ incursions on federal agencies have offered a crucial, though limited, window into the Department of Government Efficiency. As some of the only firsthand accounts, they have painted a picture of a tightly managed process in which small groups of government employees have swept in and out of agencies, grabbing up data in apparent pursuit of larger political goals.

A White House official said on Tuesday that Amy Gleason, a former health care investment executive, was serving as the acting administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service.

Mr. Gardner argued that there had been no attempt by the Department of Government Efficiency to shut down U.S.A.I.D., but rather that it was undergoing “a reorganization in consultation with Congress.” He added that he did not believe the president had the power to totally shut down the agency.

Judge Chuang pushed back on that characterization, citing a letter to Congress from Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing he had taken over as acting administrator of U.S.A.I.D. and saying that the agency “may be abolished consistent with applicable law.”

“The wood chipper isn’t usually reorganization,” Judge Chuang retorted, seeming to reference a post on social media from Mr. Musk in early February in which he said, “We spent the weekend feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper.”

“I don’t even know what that means, your honor,” Mr. Gardner replied.

Judge Chuang had granted a motion last week to move ahead with Friday’s hearing in order to consider whether to block Mr. Musk’s team from continuing to drive changes at the agency. The hearing came amid an extreme downsizing at the agency, as it moved to terminate thousands of contracts and grants, eliminating some 90 percent of U.S.A.I.D.’s work.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Washington gave the agency a midnight deadline on Thursday to release payments to a raft of programs and organizations the agency has long funded. The administration also made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, and on Wednesday night, Chief Justice John J. Roberts issued a temporary administrative stay.

On Friday, the plaintiffs asked Judge Chuang to block DOGE representatives from combing through U.S.A.I.D. data and systems, as a method of short-term relief. They said their clients, some of whom were stationed abroad, had suffered “physical and psychological harm,” had missed payments and were cut off from the agency’s systems and other “potentially lifesaving services” while awaiting further direction.

The judge declined to issue an immediate decision.

Click to comment

Politics

Lawmaker Sues Trump to Remove Name From Kennedy Center

Published

7 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Press Room

Lawmaker Sues Trump to Remove Name From Kennedy Center

Case 1:25-cv-04480 Document 1 Filed 12/22/25

Page 1 of 18

JOYCE BEATTY,¹

V.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Plaintiff,

DONALD J. TRUMP, RICHARD GRENELL, JENNIFER FISCHER, SERGIO GOR, JOHN FALCONETTI, BRIAN D. BALLARD, MARIA BARTIROMO, PAMELA BONDI, MARY HELEN BOWERS, HANNAH F. BUCHAN, ROBERT CASTELLANI, ELAINE CHAO, PAMELLA ROLAND DEVOS, PATRICIA DUGGAN, EMILIA MAY FANJUL, LYNETTE FRIESS, PAMELA GROSS, LEE GREENWOOD, KATE ADAMSON HASELWOOD, LAURA INGRAHAM, MICHELE KESSLER, DANA KRAFT, MINDY LEVINE, LYNDA LOMANGINO, BARBARA LONG, ALLISON LUTNICK, DOUGLAS MANCHESTER, CATHERINE B. REYNOLDS, DENISE SAUL, DAN SCAVINO, CHERI SUMMERALL, USHA VANCE, SUSIE WILES, ANDREA WYNN, PAOLO ZAMPOLLI, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., MARCO RUBIO, LINDA MCMAHON, MIKE JOHNSON, SAM GRAVES, JULIA LETLOW, MIKE MCCAUL, JOHN THUNE, SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, SUSAN COLLINS, TRUSTEES OF THE JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS,

Defendants.

No. 25-CV-

1 Pursuant to Local Civil Rule 5.1(c)(1), the Plaintiff’s residential address is being filed under seal with the Court in a separate Notice of Filing.

Politics

20% of NYC mayor-elect Mamdani transition appointees have anti-Zionist ties: ADL

Published

8 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Press Room

20% of NYC mayor-elect Mamdani transition appointees have anti-Zionist ties: ADL

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

At least 20 percent of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s administrative appointees are connected to groups characterized as anti-Zionist, according to a Monday report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The report found that more than 80 individuals among Mamdani’s 400-plus transition and administrative appointees either have ties to such groups or a “documented history of making anti-Israel statements.”

The organization said Mamdani’s Transition Committee appointees have been linked to groups including Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian college activism network; Jewish Voice for Peace, an American Jewish anti-Zionist organization; and Within Our Lifetime, a New York City-based anti-Zionist group “known for leading protests outside synagogues.”

For example, the ADL said at least four appointees have ties to Louis Farrakhan, the antisemitic leader of the Nation of Islam. One appointee, Jacques Léandre, was cited for reportedly attending a conference at which Farrakhan denounced “the Jews and their power.”

ADL CHIEF WARNS NYC MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI POSES A ‘CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER’ TO JEWISH COMMUNITY

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks to members of the media at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the Queens borough of New York on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Several other appointees were also cited for statements that appear to support or justify violence against Israel and the Oct. 7 attacks. According to the ADL, Kazi Fouzia posted on Facebook hours after the attacks that “Resistance are [sic] Justified when people are occupied” with video footage from an anti-Israel protest happening that day in Manhattan.

The report continued to identify other appointees who publicly expressed hostility toward Zionism.

Examples included Fahd Ahmed, who stated “Zionism is racism”; Ruha Benjamin, who signed a statement calling Israel “ideologically founded on Jewish supremacy”; Lisa Ohta, who referred to “Zionism’s genocidal ideology”; and Mohammed Karim Chowdhury, who shared a post claiming “Zionists are worse than … Nazis,” ADL reported.

MAMDANI’S FATHER SAYS COLUMBIA ‘TARGETED’ ANTI-ISRAEL STUDENTS WITH ANTISEMITISM CRACKDOWN

A protester waves a Palestinian flag during a protest on college campuses in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 2025. (ANDREW THOMAS/Middle Eeast Images/AFP via Getty Images)

The organization also identified Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, who was cited for allegedly posting a photo of herself at an encampment in front of a banner displaying an inverted red triangle, a symbol associated with Hamas, alongside the text “LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE.”

The report also states that at least 12 appointees publicly expressed support for anti-Israel campus encampments during the spring of 2024, with at least five attending the protests in person. The ADL highlighted Gianpaolo Baiocchi, who was reportedly arrested at the NYU encampment and later asserted that no hate speech was present. The ADL disputes that claim, citing flyers distributed at the encampment that called for “Death to Israeli Real Estate” and “Death to America.”

Demonstrators raise a “Free Palestine” flag on Oct. 4, 2025. (Dan Gainor)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Mamdani, who takes office on Jan. 1, has previously and repeatedly emphasized that he stands against antisemitism.

The ADL noted that many appointees did not raise concerns and emphasized that at least 25 individuals expressed support for the Jewish community, including Rabbi Joe Potasnik, Félix Matos Rodríguez, Wayne Ho, John King, and Jerry Goldfeder. However, the organization said it remains concerned about Mamdani’s team overall.

“Many of Mayor-elect Mamdani’s Transition Committee appointments are inconsistent with his campaign commitments to prioritize the safety of New York’s Jewish community,” the ADL wrote in the report.

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani for more comment.

Bonny Chu is a Digital Production Assistant at Fox News Digital.

Politics

California, other states file suit to prevent shutdown of federal consumer agency

Published

9 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Press Room

California, other states file suit to prevent shutdown of federal consumer agency

California joined 20 other states and the District of Columbia on Monday in a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from being defunded and closed by the Trump administration.

The legal action filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore. by the Democratic attorneys general accuses Acting Director Russell Vought of trying to illegally withhold funds from the agency by unlawfully interpreting its funding statute. Also named as defendants are the agency itself and the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

“For California, the CFPB has been an invaluable enforcement partner, working hand-in-hand with our office to protect pocketbooks and stop unfair business practices. But once again, the Trump administration is trying to weaken and ultimately dismantle the CFPB,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said, in a press conference to announce the 41-page legal action.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the action, co-lead by Bonta and the attorneys general from Oregon, New York, New Jersey and Colorado.

Established by Congress in 2010 after the subprime mortgage abuses that gave rise to the financial crisis, the agency is funded by the Federal Reserve as a method of insulating it from political pressure.

The Dodd-Frank Act statute requires the agency’s director to petition for a reasonable amount of funding to carry out the CFPB’s duties from the “combined earnings” of the Federal Reserve System.

Prior to this year that was interpreted to mean the Federal Reserve’s gross revenue. But an opinion from the Department of Justice claims that should be interpreted to mean the Federal Reserve’s profits, of which it has none since it has been operating at a loss since 2022. The lawsuit alleges the interpretation is bogus.

“Defendant Russell T. Vought has worked tirelessly to terminate the CFPB’s operations by any means necessary — denying Plaintiffs access to CFPB resources to which they are statutorily entitled. In this action, Plaintiffs challenge Defendant Vought’s most recent effort to do so,” the federal lawsuit states.

The complaint alleges the agency will run out of cash by next month if the policy is not reversed. Bonta said he and other attorney generals have not decided whether they will seek a restraining order or temporary injunction to change the new funding policy.

Prior to the second Trump administraition, the CPFB boasted of returning nearly $21 billion to consumers nationwide through enforcement actions, including against Wells Fargo in San Francisco over a scandal involving the creation of accounts never sought by customers.

Other big cases have been brought against student loan servicer Navient for mishandling payments and other issues, as well as Toyota Motor Credit for charging higher interest rates to Black and Asian customers.

However, this year the agency has dropped notable cases. It terminated early a consent order reached with Citibank over allegations it discriminated against customers with Armenian surnames in Los Angeles County.

It also dropped a lawsuit against Zelle that accused Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and other banks of rushing the payments app into service, leading to $870 million in fraud-related losses by users. The app denied the allegations.

Monday’s lawsuit also notes that the agency is critical for states to carry out their own consumer protection mission and its closure would deprive them of their statutorily guaranteed access to a database run by the CFPB that tracks millions of consumer complaints, as well as to other data.

Vought was a chief architect of Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint to reduce the size and power of the federal bureaucracy during a second Trump admistration. In February, he ordered the agency to stop nearly all its work and has been seeking to drastically downsize it since.

The lawsuit filed Monday is the latest legal effort to keep the agency in business.

A lawsuit filed in February by National Treasury Employees Union and consumer groups accuses the Trump administration and Vought of attempting to unconstitutionally abolish the agency, created by an act of Congress.

“It is deflating, and it is unfortunate that Congress is not defending the power of the purse,” said Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser, during Monday’s press conference.

“At other times, Congress vigilantly safeguarded its authority, but because of political polarization and fear of criticizing this President, the Congress is not doing it,” he said.